Impact of COOL on Canadian slaughter hogs

Manitoba Pork Council says the biggest outstanding
concern with US Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) is the impact it could have
on the movement of Canadian slaughter hogs into US packing
plants.

The USDA issued its interim final rule for Mandatory Country of Origin
Labelling at the end of July and it is now accepting public comment.

The
bill calls for four labels. Label A would designate meat
from animals produced and killed in the USLabel B would be
meat from animals produced in the US and another country and killed in the U.S.
Label C would be for meat from animals imported for direct
slaughter. Label D would be meat from animals produced
and processed in another country.

Manitoba Pork Council Chair Karl
Kynoch says the main outstanding concern is with the label for meat from animals
imported for direct slaughter. Initial concerns were that all livestock heading
south would be cut off.

â€œOne thing they have done is they are allowing
the Americans to put the product from label A into label B and mix it with label
B so, even if they're killing hogs that have been born, raised and processed in
the US, those can be mixed with, for example, Canadian hogs and be called
product of US and Canada. So that's a real positiveâ€ said
Kynoch.